


The Fabulous Reunion Between Poison Ivy and One Harley Quinn

by o_aphrodite



Category: Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (2020)
Genre: F/F, Found Family, Post Birds of Prey Movie, Reunion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-16 07:15:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29449905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/o_aphrodite/pseuds/o_aphrodite
Summary: Poison Ivy hears that the Joker and Harley Quinn broke up.
Relationships: Pamela Isley/Harleen Quinzel
Comments: 9
Kudos: 170





	The Fabulous Reunion Between Poison Ivy and One Harley Quinn

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sunsetsandsmokebombs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunsetsandsmokebombs/gifts).



Ivy was in California, communing with the Redwoods when the sharp ringing of her cellphone shattered the tranquility of the forest. The Redwoods were old and conservative, and in their offense over Ivy’s break in etiquette, they withdrew from her. She cursed and answered the call.

“Selina,” Ivy said coolly. “I’m on sabbatical. You know this.” Ivy placed a hand on the reddened bark in apology, but these trees were not spritely peach trees or even stately oaks. The Redwoods and Sequoias in this forest had seen a millennium stretch before them and still they towered above the minutia of mammalian existence. Courting their attention took _months_ of patience, even for emissaries of the Green, but losing their attention was as simple as it was unforgivable.

“I know, Peppermint, but I’ve got news on your girl,” Selina said, voice raised to be heard against bustling background noise. Ivy could hear the steady _click_ , _click_ , _click_ of Selina’s heels and an airport boarding call announcement on the other end of the line. Ivy scowled. 

“Harley? I don’t want to know,” Ivy hissed. “I’m not her keeper, Selina. I won’t be yanked around by her whims and then dumped like last week’s compost every time that bile-haired fuck finishes blowing Batman long enough to call her back.”

“Hell hath no fury like a fireweed scorned,” Selina mused. “But you’ve been gone for a while, and circumstances have changed. East End’s destabilizing. I’m laying low while the boys act out, but that’s never been your girl’s style.”

“What does _that_ mean?” Worry, ugly worry, tightened Ivy’s throat.

“Some of the families are consolidating, and the ones that aren’t are being removed from the board; it’s chaos. Where there’s chaos, there’s Harley,” Selina said, a shrug in her voice, “Often with a bludgeon and an Eight Ball.”

“She’s—she’s okay, right?” Ivy’s voice faltered. She cursed herself, embarrassed because maybe she understood Harley’s urge to chase after someone who’d inevitably leave her behind better than Ivy would ever say out loud.

Selina didn’t immediately answer, but Ivy could hear the muffled conversation as if Selina had covered her phone’s mic to speak to someone else.

Impatient, Ivy demanded, “Selina? Selina, answer me, is she okay?”

“Is she ever?” Selina mused.

“ _Selina_!” Ivy snapped. The low-growing plants around her bare feet shivered, and flowering wood sorrel climbed around her ankles, grounding her even as anxiety left her lightheaded. The last she’d seen of Harley, Harley was still hosting that parasitic _worm_ of a man, and he was especially cruel when attention shifted from his own fear-mongering antics. Never mind Harley’s penchant for antagonizing crime lords.

“Sorry, Peppermint, I didn’t mean to scare you, I’m just a touch distracted. She’s fine. Fuck, Pep, she’s better than fine. He left her. I know it’s happened before, but—but she just blew Ace Chemicals to hell. I think she really means it this time.”

Ivy blinked. “Really? She—and you know for sure it was _her_?”

“It was her. She drove a propane tanker directly into the plant and tossed that hideous necklace out with it. I wouldn’t have believed the voicemail she left me afterward if I hadn’t felt the explosion myself. You could see the flames from the Diamond District.”

“Ace Chemicals? Where she—that’s—” Ivy lowered herself to the ground, and the bursting foliage surged to cradle her descent so that she settled into soft underbrush. Ferns threaded their fingers between Ivy’s own, while poison oak vines threaded around her legs. Even the Redwoods softened their apparent ire as she settled against an exposed root.

Unlike the haughty behemoths around her, Ivy could never be so firm or reliable in piecing apart the emotions that tangled her insides like matted vines. “That’s—” she mumbled, shifting in the Green’s light grasp. 

She was certainly _angry_ , angry that Harley’d do something so astoundingly ecologically irresponsible. But she was _relieved_ too, and in that moment, her relief eclipsed her anger.

“That’s my girl,” Ivy finally murmured, closing her eyes, and smiling softly. The undergrowth breathed in steady rhythm, urging her to relax into its earthy embrace.

“It was about time, too,” Selina said. “It took a few weeks, but I think she’s found her footing again.”

Ivy’s eyes flew open. “Weeks?”

“Yeah; I think their relationship kicked it… was it five weeks ago? Six?”

“It couldn’t have been six, she didn’t call me,” Ivy said, hearing her own voice filtered through the ringing in her ears.

Harley and Joker had broken up, and Harley hadn’t reached out to Ivy. Harley _always_ reached out to her, whether she and Joker were over for a few hours or a few days. Ivy may have complained about only ever being Harley’s home away from home, but she didn’t want her to _stop_ either.

“… Honey,” Selina murmured gingerly. “You took a break, remember? Maybe she’s giving you space.” 

“Harley doesn’t _do_ space” Ivy muttered.

“Then, call her,” Selina huffed. “I don’t have time for this, my plane is boarding. Remind her to stay out of trouble while the gang war sorts itself out.”

Ivy pocketed her phone and curled in on herself, allowing the wood sorrel to burrow into her brown skin. Its yellow flowers bloomed from her pores and she buried her toes in the dirt beneath her. 

Ivy’d never _had_ to reach out, Harley always found her. It never mattered where Ivy was (or what she was doing for that matter). Harley was reliable in that way. Did she even try? Or, in outgrowing Joker, did Harley outgrow Ivy too? Did Harley even _need_ a home away from home without that man haunting her stairwells?

Ivy sat up, and the Green pulsed irritably.

Harley could have at least fucking _texted_. 

* * *

Harley inhaled the thick, sticky, exhaust clogged air of East Gotham, as content as the Gotham Metropolitan Museum alarms were loud. The sun was bright, her hangover was subsiding, and Cass was in Sal’s shop snagging them both the best egg sandwiches Gotham had to offer shiny new criminal queenpins.

Since they’d first pawned the Bertinelli diamond and split with Dinah, Helena, and Renee, she and Cass had cleaned up Roman’s prior territory, converting even the Black Mask Club into Gotham’s seediest gay bar yet. (In his loving memory, of course.) Those who struggled with having their businesses subsumed by a disgraced PhD and a 12-year-old were weeded out without discretion, and those who remained were too occupied by the emerging Birds of Prey. It helped that the deadly, detective dames steered clear of wherever Harley popped her bright pink bubblegum and Harley toasted female friendship with each new acquisition.

Everything was coming up Harley, with one _glaring_ exception.

Harley refreshed her What’sApp, as she’d been doing every thirty seconds since she’d pulled over onto the curb so that Cass could hop out. As she’d done nearly every hour since she and Cass introduced Roman to Gotham Bay’s gritty depths.

There wasn’t anything from Ivy; hadn’t been anything from Ivy. When she’d first left Gotham, she’d told Harley to let her be until she was ready to kick Joker to the curb for good. That didn’t stop Harley from calling and leaving increasingly desperate drunken voicemails, nor did it keep her from sending Ivy pictures of meals she ate or flowers she found pretty.

And then the Joker _had_ broken up with Harley, and Harley couldn’t message Ivy anymore. Her heart was too broken, it felt ripped from her chest, chewed up, and spat out. She couldn’t face Ivy like that; not after Ivy had more than her fair share of scraping Harley from the dirt and breathing life into her again. Harley wanted it to be different this time; she wanted Ivy to see her as a spring blossom instead of a winter weed.

So, she’d picked herself up, she’d found new hobbies, and she’d learn she didn’t need Mistah J anymore than she needed a stomach full of cyanide. She’d made friends, and she took on an apprentice in Cass.

She had _friends_.

But she wasn’t ready for Ivy, not yet. There was one last thing Harley needed to do before she could crawl back home; back into Ivy’s arms where she’d belonged all along. 

She needed to extend her criminal territory into Robinson Park. Robinson Park was Red’s favorite dive in the whole damn city, Hallmark couldn’t touch that kind of gesture.

Cass skipped out of Sal’s shop, one beautiful, radiant, radioactively yellow wrapped sandwich in each hand. She slid into the passenger seat of the convertible and passed Harley East Gotham’s delicacy.

“Sal says getting a twerp doesn’t mean you can’t come in and say hi every now and then,” Cass chirped, unwrapping her own sandwich, and taking a massive bite. “To’d him I wafn’t a twerp,” she added, mouth full.

“What’d I say about mindfulness, kid? Chew, taste, swallow, and _then_ speak. It’s good for your soul,” Harley said, inhaling the smell of her sandwich through its wrapper. “Besides, there’s nothing wrong with bein’ a twerp. Twerps grow up to be troublemakers, and troublemakers get shit done.”

She delicately unwrapped the sandwich, exaggerating each gesture to the kid. Live by example, right? Cass just rolled her eyes, although she obligingly swallowed.

“I’m practically grown already,” she huffed. “You and I both know I’ve seen some shit; besides, if I was just a kid, I wouldn’t be such a good _apprentice_.”

“I’ll give ya that,” Harley smirked. “You’re a quick study. But don’t get too big for your boots, you ain’t seen nothing yet.”

Harley raised her sandwich to her mouth, opened her red painted lips, and was just about to take a big ol’ bite when the ground shook with a deafening ** _CRACK_**. The asphalt fractured around them, and from the fissures burst thick, thorny vines. The vines snapped around the car, the thorns sinking back as they wrapped around the detailed exterior of the vehicle, almost as if the earth itself didn’t want to scratch the paint.

Cass screamed.

Harley lowered her sandwich.

Butterflies fluttered.

“ _Harley Quinn_!” a smoky, sultry, _sorely missed_ voice screeched above the din.

Harley tossed her sandwich into Cass’s lap and turned around in her seat, even as the vines lifted the car into the air. Harley braced her hands on the headrest and grinned dopily up at the only woman who could pick her up when she was down (literally, it was difficult to get a grip on Harley, much less dangle her several meters above concrete in a tricked-out ride).

NAME: Pamela “Poison Ivy” Isley  
GRIEVANCE: Loved Harley before Harley could love herself.

There, for the first time since she’d left Harley in Amusement Mile several months prior, hovered Poison Ivy. She perched in the maw of a massive Venus flytrap; her red hair tied back in twin buns and her scowl painted green. She looked angry, she looked _present_ , she looked beautiful.

The car was held aloft some distance from Ivy, but Harley knew she’d hear Harley if Harley was loud. And Harley was _good_ at being loud.

“Hiya, Red!” Harley called, waving. “I love what you’ve done with your hair! Do ya see mine? It’s shorter since I saw ya last. And look at Rose Bud! She got a new look too, I wanted her to be ready for when you came home!”

“ _What_?!” Cass hissed, eyes wild.

Ivy’s frown twitched.

“It. It looks good,” Ivy conceded, haltingly. Then she furrowed her brows and sneered, “But flames? Really, Harls?”

Harley grinned, propped her elbows on the car seat’s headrest, and cupped her face. “You always told me about controlled wildfire’s burnin’ up the ground to make way for new growth. It felt right. I’ve been in a controlled wildfire, and I’m ready to grow.”

Ivy’s face screwed tight. She trembled, and the vines tightened around the car until the metal groaned. Cass squeezed her eyes shut and gripped the hem of Harley’s jacket like a lifeline.

“What about me?” Ivy hissed, her voice rougher suddenly.

Harley frowned and jolted to attention. “What do you mean what about you? I wasn’t gonna bother you until I finished sprucin’ up the place for you,” Harley said, gesturing to the neighborhood around them. Most of the people had already taken cover, the few who didn’t were gawking. Dumbasses. “You’re looking at East Gotham’s freshly crowned Queen of Crime!”

She threw her hands in the air and held them like that, waiting for Ivy’s reaction.

Ivy blinked. “Harls, Roman Sionis owns East Gotham. Or, at least he owns whatever his Daddy doesn’t already.”

Harley grinned, and it was all teeth. “Let’s just say me and my new apprentice sent Romie to sleep with the fishes if ya catch my drift.”

Ivy’s burning gaze flickered from Harley to Cass and then back to Harley. “You… you’ve been busy,” Ivy murmured, cocking her head. Then she sniffed and said, “Too busy to even text me.”

Harley’s expression softened and she dropped her arms. “I’m never too busy for that, Red,” she said, softly, gently. “But I told you, I’m tryna grow, and I didn’t want to ask you to come home without bein’ ready for you. I was gonna snag Robinson Park, and then get us a nice penthouse or somethin’ with a glass ceiling so it could double as a greenhouse.

“I wanted you to meet the kid over lunch at that place you like in the Diamond District, and I thought we could figure out what to do next, together. It’s only a matter of time ‘till that piece of shit, good for nothin’ comes crawling outta whatever acid tank he’s been sleepin’ in, and I thought we could get take ‘im out. _Together_.”

Emboldened by Harley’s familiarity with Ivy, Cass released her jacket and turned around too, poking her head just over the seat to sneak a look. Ivy met her gaze, and then cracked a small smile. Cass relaxed, if only a bit.

“New apprentice, huh?” Ivy asked. “Can she keep a plant alive? I may need help watering some of the cuttings if you expect a greenhouse out of a penthouse.”

“Uh, yeah, I could probably give it a try,” Cass muttered. “My last foster had a fern. It didn’t die.”

Ivy stepped from the maw of her carnivorous flytrap and a vine wrapped around her waist. It carried her to Harley and Cass, depositing her gingerly only the back of the convertible.

With a shriek of delight, Harley scrambled over the seat and threw herself into Ivy’s arms. With their height difference, Harley had to jump to wrap her arms around Ivy’s neck, but Ivy caught her without hesitation. And then Ivy choked out a wet laugh before embracing Harley, squeezing her tight and burying her face in her cheek.

“Oh, Harls,” Ivy murmured. “I’m so fucking proud of you.”

Harley pulled away, her own face screwing up tight. Cass blinked. She hadn’t seen Harley cry once, not through everything they’d experienced together. She’d gotten glassy-eyed, sure, but nothing like this. Nothing like the big fat tears rolling down her face then.

“Sorry it took me so long, Red,” Harley whimpered. “I’m sorry it took ‘till now to get my shit together, it’s—it’s not your fault, it’s me, I—”

Ivy pressed her forehead against Harley’s and swiped a thumb beneath Harley’s eye, gathering her tears and wiping them away. “It doesn’t matter that it took time, it matters that you got here, in the end,” Ivy promised. “All plants need space to grow, Harley, even hothouse flowers like you.”

Harley choked out another sob and Ivy rubbed her back, still holding her close. After several minutes of Ivy cooing, while Harley hiccupped, Cass cleared her throat.

“Uh, guys,” Cass began. “Um, does this… Harley does this mean I’m… do you—”

Harley looked up at Ivy pleadingly. Ivy frowned.

“I… well. I always imagined a sporeling for myself, but…” she looked Cass up and down, and then nodded curtly. “You’ll need to be immunized to my toxins. It may take a day or two for your allergies to go away, but then you’ll be as right as rain.”

Cass sagged in relief and cracked a grin.

“I doubt Harley has you enrolled in school,” Ivy continued, straightening, and taking on an authoritative—no, a _maternal_ tone, “so that’ll have to happen. We can extort Wayne into admitting you into that nice one he funds, which means a uniform, but if you wear the school uniform then we’ll make something for you to wear when you’re out with us—”

Harley kissed her then, smashing her face into Ivy’s so hard that Cass winced. But then Ivy tilted her head and deepened their kiss into something soft and sweet and gentle.

When she finally pulled away, Harley grinned. “I love ya, Red.”

Ivy tucked a strand of Harley’s hair behind her ear. “I love you too, Harls.”

Harley reached out an arm, and Cass obligingly crawled over the seat to join them on the back of the car, slotting into place by Harley’s side. Ivy hesitated, and then she tucked Cass’s hair behind her ear too. Cass looked down to hide her smile.

“We’re going to tear shit _up_!” Harley announced.

Ivy just laughed.


End file.
